I read the short prequel to the Simon Serrailler books only a few weeks ago. Not believing I had somehow missed reading any Susan Hill books I kept going.

I was a wee bit miffed that book one did not follow on exactly as the prequel had been written but by book two I had forgotten about that.

I jumped at the chance to read book nine through NetGalley.

I want more. The Serrailler family have grown up and out. They have been born, divorced, undergone horrific experiences and died.

The police service has changed, medical services have changed but book nine has somehow got better (all bar book one would get five stars from me).

Simon is only mid 40s and a CSI. He still has places to go if Susan will take him there. This is a marvellous, meaty read. It made me cringe and it made me cry.

I have not read any Simon Serrailler books before, and it is clear to me I need to start at the beginning to learn more about this intriguing character. The story is quite gentle, nothing cruel or gory happens. It is well written, I could hardly put it down, and have read it in two sittings..

It begins with Simon being in intensive care in hospital, he has been in a serious accident which seriously damaged his arm. The surgeon is optimistic that he can fix it, but then Sepsis sets in, and the arm has to be removed. Simon is fitted with a prosthetic arm, and is waiting for a top of the range 'bionic' arm to be fitted. He doesn't want sympathy or help from his sister and family so he retreats to Taransay in the Outer Hebrides, a remote place with an inhospitable terrain, to come to terms with his disability. He has friends there, but they mostly leave him to his own devices. Then his nephew Sam unexpectedly joins him. Sam is hiding out from his mother, trying to decide what he wants to do with his life, and he knows that Simon will be non-judgemental, and won't try to force his opinion on him; and they muddle along together quite well.

Then a dead body is found on the beach, and they discover that the woman had been murdered. The police are on the mainland, and heavily involved in a serious case, so as a Detective Inspector, Simon is asked if he can do an initial investigation until they are able to send someone. He does so, and it does not take him too long to find out who did it, but that causes him a bit of a conundrum. Meanwhile, his boss, and brother-in-law, send him the paperwork of a five-year-old cold case that might need re-investigating. He reads all the information and finds quite a few cracks and holes in the case that do need checking up on.

He knows it is time to go home, and he slips away from Taransay without saying goodbye to anyone. When he gets home he and his boss discuss the case, Simon is still on sick leave and he can only be offered any assistance on an as-needed basis, but he starts his investigation and soon finds the link that starts to make a difference. The information proves the involvement of their suspect, but is too flimsy to make a conviction stick. That evidence is provided quite unexpectedly!

There is a lot of family interaction in this book, which is very interesting, as is the information about the faults in the NHS, a subject very much in the thoughts of Simon's sister, a GP. Simon's father is very much a part of the story, even though he and Simon do not get on very well. His involvement is not part of the police investigations. Maybe his being back in Britain will be more involved in the next book.

A lovely story, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I found this latest novel in the Simon Serrailler series rather a mixed bag. It's set mainly on the remote island of Taransey, and the symbiotic nature of the isolated place and the singular man coming to terms with his life changing injury are well drawn. The story draws the reader in as you would expect from this experienced story-teller, however, I was disappointed with the denouement which I didn't find entirely convincing. Despite this, I'll still be keen to read the next one when it comes out!

I would like to thank Netgalley and Random House UK, Vintage Publishing for an advance copy of The Comforts of Home, the ninth novel to feature DCS Simon Serailler of the Lafferton police.

Serailler goes to the Scottish island of Taransay to recover from serious injuries sustained on his last case. While there he gets involved in investigating the disappearance of Sandy Murdoch, a popular incomer and having another look at the disappearance of Kimberley Still 5 years previously. He finds enough loose ends to return to Lafferton and start a more serious investigation.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Comforts of Home which held me engrossed throughout. I'm at a bit of a loss to explain this as recently I've had a very poor attention span and there is nothing outstanding or particularly suspenseful in the novel to hook me and yet I couldn't put it down. Both plots are fairly flimsy with the solutions coming relatively easily but they pose unanswerable questions and moral dilemmas that the reader can't help but ponder, notably the price of justice. As with all the books in the series there is always something vague about the plot. The solution is never neatly tied up in a bow with all bases covered and requires the reader to make assumptions and draw inferences. I would prefer a more detailed explanation but this way is probably a better reflection of real life. The strength of the novel lies in the depiction of family life and the minor dramas in his sister Cat's life.

This same vagueness surrounds Serailler's character. I don't think that after all these novels I have a good grasp of his character. He is closed in, self sufficient and disinclined to discuss emotions. There is an elliptical, laconic tenor to his dialogue which leaves the reader second guessing him. The strength of the novel lies in the depiction of family life and the minor dramas in his sister Cat's life. I love Cat as she seems much more realistic and down to earth than her brother. Her trials and tribulations are things we can relate to and empathise with and I read them avidly.

The Comforts of Home is a good read which I have no hesitation in recommending.

This is the 9th book in the Simon Serrailler series and picks up where the eighth left off - with Simon in hospital recovering from a horrific attack. He travels to the island of Taransay to recuperate and there (of course) becomes involved in a murder. Meanwhile back at home there is a cold case which his new brother in law, Kieron, who also happens to be Chief Inspector, becomes engaged with and asks Simon to help by reviewing the case files.

Simon solves the Scottish mystery and returns home, where he becomes much more than marginally involved in the cold case, which involved the disappearance of a young woman. The victim's mother and the police know who the murderer was, a man in prison convicted of other crimes, but they have not been able to prove it.

It's an enjoyable read, it's good to see the ways in which the characters and relationships have developed, which is half the fun or reading these long series, although I could have done without the long musings over private medicine from Cat, Simon's sister. Simon himself is a bit of a cold fish. In this sense he is well-written, but the romantic in me would like a touch more of the Peter Wimsey and less of the emotional observer. In any event it's a must for the many fans of this series. Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for a review copy.

Wow, Simon is back, I thought at first we were in for a depressing read, how wrong I was, I love the fact that it's not just about simon but his whole family, I kept going to put this book down and get some sleep, no, it wasn't to be, still going when the birds started, brilliant book.

This is the 9th in the Chief Superintendent Simon Serrailler series set in Lafferton by Susan Hill. This is a perfectly acceptable piece of crime fiction, amiable and engaging. However, for Susan Hill, this is an under powered, treading water and more in the field of adequate crime writing for the author. It has little in the way of grit, and a greater focus on family dynamics and drama within an upper middle class milieu. Simon is in hospital, and is having to come to terms with losing his left arm after an unexpected and virulent infection after surgery. After acquiring a prosthetic arm, but struggling to come to terms with what has happened to him mentally, he takes off for the familiar Scottish Island of Taransay to recover whilst he awaits a more technologically superior prosthetic. Life is not easy, he pushes himself physically with all the walking he does and immerses himself in the small island community.

Predictably, Simon is caught up in murder when the body of Sandy Murdoch, a woman who had been a recent arrival on the Island is found. Sandy had fitted in well, she was strong and able, going out of her way to help others. No-one knew very much about her, her background was a mystery, she did not go out of her way to talk about her past or even where she came from. Simon is joined by Sam, his young nephew, who has no idea of where his future lies, leaving him stumped about which course to do at university. Cat, Simon's sister, has married Chief Constable Kieron Bright, Simon's boss and friend, who is slowly beginning to fit into the Serrailler family, including being accepted by Cat's children. However, Kieron is to be severely tested when Cat's father the irascible and ill Richard comes on the scene. Cat is unhappy with the GP working conditions, and is looking to move in a new direction in her profession as a doctor. Kieron and Lafferton Police are under pressure with an arsonist running amok, and the media pressure on the cold case of the missing Kimberly Still, assumed to be the victim of a convicted killer serving life in prison. It is Simon who unearths a poor police investigation into Kimberly's disappearance and takes it upon himself to discover the truth.

This was an enjoyable enough crime novel, but after I had finished reading, I was aware this was not going to be a read that was going to leave any long term impression on me. I had hoped for more, but perhaps this addition is just a blip in the series, and it will return to its higher standards in the future. Nevertheless, I can see many readers enjoying this Simon Serrailler outing. Many thanks to Random House Vintage for an ARC.

I have loved all of Susan Hill's Simon Serrailler crime novels and I was extremely pleased to receive an advance copy of her latest installment through netgalley, especially as I had been led to believe that she wasn't writing any more of this series.

However, while Hill's prose is readable as ever, I just didn't engage with 'The comforts of home' as much as I have with her previous novels. This may be partly due to Serrailler himself spending much of the novel recuperating after having his left arm amputated after an incident prior to the novel's opening (I don't recall this at the end of book 8 but I think it must have occurred then!) on the remote Scottish island of Taransay. While there is a crime in this section of the book, it lacks the depth and complexity Susan Hill fans are used to and the way in which this part of the story is left was unsatisfactory to me. Back in Lafferton, we are given a series of arson attacks and a cold case for Serrailler to go over to ease him back into policing, but again, we don't get much to get our teeth into.

On finishing the book I was left feeling slightly underwhelmed and disappointed with my reading experience and although it wont stop from reading further books in the series if there are any, I certainly wont be raving about this one.

It really pains me to say this, but after following Hill’s Serrailler series through the previous 8 books and loving them all, this one comes as a huge disappointment.

The prologue kicks off pretty much straight after the traumatic ending to the previous book – but then as the book proper starts we’ve shifted forwards in time and some of the developments that Hill could have explored in detail are all done and over with, having happened ‘offstage’. This just isn’t the Hill of previous books who delved deeply into the psyches and inner lives of her characters.

Too much of this book feels uninspired and dead on the page, as if Hill is going through the motions but that her heart isn’t really in it. Too much space is given to details of what people are eating (scrambled eggs, buttered toast, thick ham sandwiches, champagne, local rosé, crab linguine, amuse bouches) – see, just off the top of my head I can reel these off as they’re more prominent than what people are thinking and feeling.

I’ve commented before that Hill’s world is very upper middle-class – choir singing in the local cathedral, second homes in France, characters in respectable professions – but that’s never stopped me enjoying the books. Here, though, the middle-class smugness really rubbed me up the wrong way. Simon, when talking to his teenaged nephew who is agonising over career choices (as is natural, given his age), dismisses anything that isn’t medicine, the police, academia and teaching, saying that there is nothing else. Even worse, Cat (who I’ve loved in previous books) is now not just leaving the NHS for a private subscription doctor service, but justifies the £100 per month fee as being not ‘medicine for the very rich’ but ‘actually, a hundred pounds a month is a supper out or half a dozen bottles of average wine or tickets to something’ – so her view of ‘average wine’ is £17 a bottle!

Of course, all this might be merely a minor irritant if the story itself had the layered grippiness of the previous books – but it hasn’t. It feels bitty with Simon investigating death on a remote island (shades of Ann Cleeves’ Shetland series here) before returning to look into a cold case and a series of arsons. It all feels a bit desperate to be honest, and lacks Hill’s trademark psychological subtlety and profound human interest. Even the writing is sloppy in places: 'she heard what at first sounded like a low-flying plane roaring overhead but then, as the noise level increased, was clearly a series of explosions': how can the continuous sound of a plane sound like a series of explosions which peak then fall away? Especially when, on the next page, it turns out to be a single explosion?

So a slog of a book, for me – and I never thought I’d say that about Hill. So disappointing.

I love this series and am so pleased to see it back – after the tension fuelled previous novel with it’s heart stopping ending it was wonderful to enter the world of Simon, Cat et al once more.

I adore the way Susan Hill plays with different strands of a storyline, here we have Simon recuperating yet still being drawn into a murder, Cat starting a new life with a new love and a cold case about to heat up once more. It is kind of gentle in a lot of ways, lilting prose, clever plotting and huge depth of character, but also genuinely  addictive, a brilliant read.

Each of the Simon Serrailler novels is a journey of character with beautifully described settings and an authentic sense of place. This one was no different and was a pleasure from first page to last.

There is nothing not to love here. My one request would be not to make us wait so long again for more.

This, plus the entirety of the series comes highly recommended from me.

The Comforts of home is good, but I don’t think it’s quite up to the exceptional standard of many of its predecessors in this excellent series.

We follow Simon’s recovery, both physical and psychological, after the shocking events in The Soul of Discretion as he eventually travels to Taransay to convalesce. His father is in France and Cat’s life progresses at home in Lafferton, where there is some serious crime and a cold case to investigate. Even on Taransay, Simon becomes involved in a local mystery and then a crime...and therein lie some of my reservations about the book. There is so much happening in so any different places that it loses focus, I think, and Susan Hill’s thoughtful, often profound psychological analyses are less evident.

Her writing is as good as ever, with lovely, unobtrusive prose, extremely well-painted characters and an excellent sense of place on Taransay. However, I didn’t find Cat’s most recent medical dilemmas anything like as interesting as they have been, and other things weren’t quite on Hill’s normally stellar level. One thing that has marked this series as quite exceptional has been her examination of attitudes to death in different circumstances. That is almost wholly absent here (as it was from the previous book), but I was hoping for a similarly incisive portrait of recovery from physical and psychological trauma. It’s not really there; Simon is a closed and introverted character and we actually see very little of what he is going through. As a result, The Comforts Of Home felt rather more like a decent crime novel and a little less like the superb, profound books which have preceded it.

A not-quite-so-good book by Susan Hill is still far better than much of what’s out there and I can still recommend this, but it wasn’t quite the exceptional treat that I was expecting.

(My thanks to Random House for an ARC via NetGalley.)